The Return of Antonides: Christmas at the Castello(26)

Her hands slid over his back and the hard muscles of his arms and  shoulders. While he was lean, his muscles were most definitely those of a  man who worked hard physically. She loved running her fingers over him  and feeling the tremor of those hard muscles beneath her hands.

Lukas's own hands were doing explorations of their own, sliding beneath  the hem of her T-shirt, tracing the line of the waistband of her  shorts. Holly remembered how it felt to have his hands on her. He made  her quiver. He made her moan.

The sound seemed to please him. Abruptly, Lukas shoved himself to his  knees and drew her up with him to grab her shirt and pull it straight  over her head. Then he sat back against his heels, a smile curving the  corner of his mouth as he cupped her breasts in his palms.

Self-conscious despite her best intentions, Holly shifted to cover herself. But Lukas stilled her hands. "Don't."

His gaze settled on her, then he bent his head and kissed each of her  breasts, teasing her nipples to hard, tight buds, made her gasp and grab  his shoulders as his tongue skimmed over her heated flesh, leaving  exquisitely sensitive trails.                       
       
           



       

Stardust trails, Holly thought, giving herself over to the moment-to the man.

And then she ceased to think at all.

* * *

Holly. In his bed.

At last.

Holly's hands on his bare back, nails scratching lightly, sent  exquisite little bolts of electricity straight through him, making him  even harder than he'd been. But when her fingers slid around to the snap  at the waistband of his jeans, he stilled them even though his own  fingers shook as he pulled hers away. "Wait." His breath came in quick  gasps. He shoved himself back and up on one elbow.

Holly stared at him, eyes wide and uncomprehending. "Wait?"

"Just. Slow. Down." He could only manage one word at a time, and there  was a tremor in his voice as well as in his hands. He felt like a  teenager, lacking control, desperate for release. A release he craved at  the same time he wanted this to last.

"No...hurry." His mouth twisted. "We've got...all night."

Then he dipped his head and buried his face in her hair, drawing in  more deeply the tantalizing citrus scent that had always said "Holly" to  him. He nibbled her ear, pressed kisses along her jaw, slid his hands  down her sides, then up over her breasts.

"How come you get to do things?" Holly's voice was plaintive. He could hear a tremor in it that made him smile.

"Because you want me to." He lifted his head and looked down at her. "Don't you?"

She swallowed. It was answer enough. Still watching her face, he drew  one trembling finger down between her breasts, circled her nipples, then  bent his head to lave them again with his tongue. He smiled when he  heard her breath catch.

"Lukas!" His name hissed between her teeth. She reached out and caught  his hand in hers. But she didn't stop him. His lips pressed kisses where  his fingers had gone. His tongue traced the same path, pebbling her  nipples, making her squirm.

She trembled as he rubbed a thumb over the exquisite softness of her  breasts, then cupped them, nuzzled and nibbled them. Holly let go of his  hand to grab a handful of his hair. It made him smile, and he bent his  head and moved lower, down across her flat belly to the waistband of her  shorts. Then, as her hands slipped down to clutch his shoulders, he  drew a fingertip along the edge of her waistband and felt the muscles in  her abdomen contract. She shifted under his touch.

Lukas flicked open the button, then eased down the zip and tugged the  shorts down over her hips, then drew them down the length of her legs.  Ah, those legs. God, he loved her legs.

Tossing the shorts aside, he made himself slow down, appreciate every  moment as his fingers played back up from her ankles again. He followed  them with his lips, kissing her knees, then sliding between them so he  could do the same to the insides of her thighs.

"My turn," she said fiercely, pushing herself up to fumble with the zip  of his jeans. He didn't stop her this time, even though he was on the  edge and very nearly tipped right over when her fingers opened his zip  and found him. Lukas's teeth clenched as her hand wrapped his hot flesh,  tentatively at first, then more firmly. A harsh breath slipped between  his teeth.

"Slow," he warned, teeth clenched.

It was close to the best thing he'd ever experienced-Holly touching  him, learning his body-almost as wonderful as touching and learning  hers. She could have shattered him right then if he'd let her. He  wouldn't.

He stilled her fingers, then drew her hand away from him, felt the  aching loss of her touch, but focused instead on her. He stroked lightly  along the edge of the waistband of her panties, dipping beneath to  trail a finger through the soft curls at the apex of her thighs. She  trembled and shifted as he bent his head to plant a kiss there. And then  another and another, before hooking his fingers around the scrap of  lace and sliding them slowly down her thighs. Then he sat back and  beheld Holly Montgomery Halloran naked before him.

"Dear God, you're beautiful."

He'd imagined this for years. Holly had figured so regularly in his  nighttime fantasies, especially after the night of her prom, that he'd  told himself that the real woman couldn't possibly live up to them.

But she did.

She was everything he had imagined-and more.

The curve of her hip, the length of her legs, the small pert mounds of  her breasts, the triangle of curls that hid her mysteries all enticed  him. He wanted to explore them all. First the soft smoothness of her  skin drew his touch. He ran a hand over her from her shoulder over her  hip, down her leg to her toes. He bent her leg, ignored the tantalizing  hint of mystery that bending her knee uncovered, and instead kissed her  toes.                       
       
           



       

"Lukas!"

"Mmm." He kissed them one by one, then let his fingers walk up her  instep, trace her right ankle, then her left. Then he walked his fingers  up her calves again to trace the backs of her knees, the exquisite  softness of the insides of her thighs-torturing himself with  anticipation. Wait, he told himself. Wait.

His thumbs brushed lightly against the curls where her thighs joined.  Holly bit her lip, held perfectly still. She'd held still the night on  his father's boat, too. She'd gripped his shoulders so hard she'd left  tiny bruises that he'd cherished long after they had disappeared. And  she'd let him touch her. He touched her now. More deeply. Slid a finger  through folds that were wet. For him.

"Lukas!" Holly's voice was urgent.

"Mmm?" He breathed on her there.

"There is slow and then there is slow!" She sounded somewhere between lust and laughter.

Lukas laughed raggedly, then kissed her, touched his tongue to her. There.

She jerked. Her knees pressed against his ears. "You are driving me insane!"

"I know." He was driving himself insane, too.

"How would you like it if I did that to you?"

He groaned. "Do you think I'd tell you to stop?"

"Excellent." Abruptly Holly sat up and looped her fingers over the waistband of his jeans.

Lukas started to do it himself, but she batted his hands away. "My turn."

"Hol'-"

"We're going slow," she reminded him, all seriousness, then slanted him a wicked smile. "You'll love it."

She was going to kill him. He made a noise deep in his throat. But he  knelt back on his heels stoically, watching as Holly came up on her  knees before him in all her naked glory and slowly-inch by inch-no,  centimeter by centimeter, slid the jeans down his hips, then coaxed him  up off his heels to pull them off, to run her hands over him, taking her  own sweet time.

He groaned, then gritted his teeth as she found him again and clasped  him in both her hands, stroked him. His hips bucked. "Holly!"

She smiled. "Exactly."

Then she put a hand against his chest and pushed him back against the  mattress. He reached for her, to pull her down on top of him. But she  twisted away, moved to the end of the bed, bent her head, kissed his  toes.

Lukas's fingers knotted around the sheet. "For God's sake!"

"See what I mean?" Holly looked up brightly with another of those  maddening smiles. She slid between his legs, and he reached for her to  lift her and settle her against him where he needed her most. If he  didn't get her there soon-like, in an instant-it would be too late. Her  merest touch would send him right over the edge. If she reached out a  finger and touched him now, it would be all over.

"Wait, I thought you said-" Holly began, grinning at him.